1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of rating a storage system by reducing a set of attributes associated with the storage system and an application to a single quantified number.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
In an analysis of performance related to a particular system or algorithm, various techniques of benchmarking are used to provide the evaluation. These various prior art benchmarking techniques are then used to provide a comparative analysis of related devices, systems or software by measuring key attributes of interest.
For example, a benchmarking technique for analyzing the floating-point performance is known as the Whetstone Benchmark. The Whetstone Benchmark, described in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Volume 28, No. 12 (see reference.1, listed below) is actually a mix of the 10 Whetstone kernels wherein each kernel represents a different type of numerical operation. The Whetstone Benchmark is used as a standard by which the floating-point performance of the different systems can be compared.
A second example is a technique for evaluating advanced time sharing systems. This technique, disclosed in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Volume 14, No. 5 (see reference 2) describes an analytical model which correlates various parameters, such as resource utilizations, mean queue lengths, response times, and throughput rates for closed systems having a finite quantity of requestors competing for the system's resources. A model is provided for each system and variables assigned to each of the system parameters are analyzed to calculate a benchmark value. Then the benchmark values of each of the competing systems are compared to evaluate the performance of each time sharing system.
In some instances, a single figure is determined from a calculation involving a multitude of parameters. Two well-known prior art techniques to arrive at a single performance figure are the Gibson Mix and the Dhrystone Benchmark. Both of these are concerned with measurement of the speed of a central processor unit (CPU). The Dhrystone Benchmark measures the speed of executing a given number of program statements on a CPU (see reference 3). The Gibson Mix refers to the mix of instructions used by a computer while executing scientific programs. The Gibson Mix is used as a workload model for a CPU (see references 4-7). The Gibson Mix provides a weighted sum as the mix of a set of instructions. Although various benchmarking techniques are known in the prior art, most of these techniques apply to CPUs or to other processing systems.
Storage systems, such as disk drives, are functionally different from processors and require a different set of parameters to benchmark attributes relating to the performance of the storage systems In the instance where a number of storage media or application alternatives are available, it would be advantageous to derive a method of comparing the performance of the various storage systems and applications. Further, if the parameters associated with the various storage systems and applications can be benchmarked to a single figure, similar to the Dhrystone and Gibson Mix benchmark figures described above, then the benchmark values can be compared to evaluate the various alternatives for the purpose of choosing the optimal storage system for each specific application or choosing the optimal file system for a specific storage system.